The conversion of Peachy Wilson

Wilson,P. T., Illustrated American, 1894, 16, 445-6.

The ‘one incident’ having more to do with my life than any other event occurred on the twenty-sixth day of August, 1850, just forty-four years ago. The incident was what the Methodists called in those days ‘conversion’; I am not sure that it was the same experience which often goes by that name now. My mother's people were from Virginia to Georgia, thence to Kentucky, where my father lived and I was born. In the Spring of 1833 they removed to Illinois; this Statt', having come into its Statehood in 1818, was then but fifteen years of age and was for the most part virgin soil. My parents, that they might escape the wickedness and other evils which to their thought developed in towns, chose lands in the country, about twelve miles from the thriving village of Quincy (now a city of some forty thousand inhabitants), located on the bluffs above the Mississippi River, in Adams County. We soon bad our log schoolhouse with its puncheon floors and slab benches. The light was admitted by a log having been cut out of one side of the building and in its place glass was put. Here was a writing desk where those learning to write sat for a while daily. There was a large fireplace on which were piled, on the colder days, great logs, making a hot fire, somewhat compensating for the cold air which rushed in from every side. Our style was a four or five months' school during the fall and winter months, then hard work on the farm the rest of the year.

As churches were few, services were held for the most part in private houses, in groves and in schoolhouses throughout the country. It was a common thing for the Cumberland Presbyterians to hold services at our house, and the Methodists had their meetings two miles away, at Dr. Thornton Gilmers' house. The Cumberland Presbyterians had their camp meeting only a mile away, in a beautiful grove, while the Methodists had
theirs in groves two to four miles distant. As years passed by the Methodists seemed to take the lead in this region, and they only continued to have annual camp meetings. I do not remember that in my time my people ever failed to take part in these outdoor gatherings. I was a farmer till I was twenty-one years of age and would no doubt have continued one during life had it not been for the incident of which I write, which occurred when I was in my eighteenth year.

When a lad of six years of age I rode behind my mother to the weekly meetings at Dr. Gilmers' house, and there the preacher, Rev. William J. Rutledge, who still lives, used to hold a class meeting at the close of service. On these occasions he would put his hand on my head and earnestly commend me to God. So I grew up believing that I was some time to be converted. I would say to one of my brothers, while we talked of these things in the fields, that when I was converted I wished to be like Father Ballard, an old Methodist class leader who was often shouting happy; but I did not want the kind of religion that a certain Brother A-- had, whose daily walk did not seem to be in any way modified by it.

At a very busy time when I was thrashing out wheat, a revival began at the Elm Grove schoolhouse, about two miles north of us. Though too busy at first to attend, yet I had daily reports of the progress of the meetings; and as I heard that Fletcher Kirkpatrick, Will Ballard and others of my schoolfellows were being converted, I was in great trouble; and as soon as I could get free from my work I arranged to attend the meetings. From the first I felt I was a great sinner and that all was wrong with me. I seemed lost and ruined, far from God, and that none but Jesus could save me. So by grace I resolved that very day to forsake sin and serve and obey God as long as I lived. About noon I joined the Methodist-Episcopal Church on probation, and going home went up into the haymow and there giving myself to God and accepting the Lord Jesus Christ as my atoner, I felt I had peace with God through His name. But at the evening service I had a great longing to receive the Holy Spirit which I had been taught was the indweller of Christians. I felt I could not live unless the Heavenly Comforter came into my heart. After the sermon I, with many others. went to the altar (some benches placed in front of the pulpit, sometimes called the mourner's bench) and plead with God till his power came upon us and we all seemed to be filled with the Holy Spirit. The first thing I knew, Father Ham (an old local preacher and a prominent man among us) had picked me up in his arms as if I were a child of a year old and was carrying me around the room, and everybody was shouting and praising God, and I for the first time in my life joined in the same exercise.

This is the ‘one strange incident in my experience’ which has made my history what it has been from that day to this. From that day I was seized with a desire to win souls for Christ. This desire drove me to college after I was twentyone years of age. So now, as a result of this incident, I am an A.M. in arts, a B.D. in divinity and an M.D. in medicine.  And some thirty-two years have passed since bidding adieu to home, land and dear friends. I have been trying to win men, women and children for Christ, in India. In India I have been architect and builder, educator, doctor and surgeon, preacher and evangelist. For some years I was superintendent of pilgrim hospitals in the Himalaya mountains. As such I had charge of forty native doctors and other medical subordinates, with eight hospitals. These were for the accommodation of the pilgrims who came annually by thousands to worship at the shrines of Budrinath and Kidarnath, located at the foot of the peaks of the same name. These mountains stood some twenty-three thousand feet above the level of the sea, and their snow-capped summits shimmering in the sunlight ever tell of God's purity. No wonder the Hindoo should think this the abode of the Gods.

In my travels I have seen many glaciers, but that of Kidarnath is surpassed by few. I have ascended by the side of it to an altitude of eighteen thousand feet above the sea. I have camped at Budrinath temple, eleven thousand feet above the sea, in a tent eight by ten feet, for weeks. when the snow and ice lay all around in the midst of summer. The pilgrims were dying with cholera and I was doing what I could to care for the sick and dying. being the only white man within ten days' travel. While in these mountains I did a large surgical practice, performing amputations and many major operations, including over one hundred cases; for relief of vesical calculi; and more than once I was thanked by the surgeon-general of the Northwest Provinces for my surgical work. During my last six years in India I was permitted to baptize over three thousand converts. I look back to the incident of forty-four years ago and clearly see that this was the key to my life.

And now, at the age of near sixty-two years, after a short furlough home, I am en route for India, hoping that God may allow me to be his agent in the conversion of some thousands more Hindoos before my work closes for this age, then ho! for an eternity with Christ ; then it will be that I shall become like Him, for I shall see Him as He is. A few more years and death (if I am to die) shall be swallowed up in victory and the weary toiler of today shall have entered into that city whose maker and builder is God.

PEACHY T. WILSON,
American Mission, Lucknow, India

Peachy died 4 years later